


Cold Little Heart

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [27]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: (Annie when she was in the Capitol), (very briefly) - Freeform, Dead Finnick Odair, Gen, Grief, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Johanna's having a tough time, Mental Health Issues, Misery Loves Company, Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some ableist language, Suicidal Thoughts, mentioned past suicide, mentions of drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27751972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: Johanna doesn't feel anything.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason & Annie Cresta, Johanna Mason & Finnick Odair
Series: Tales of District Four [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Cold Little Heart

Johanna doesn’t feel anything when they tell her. 

They come and find her and give her the news. The war is over. The Capitol has surrendered. They give her the list of survivors, and the list of casualties.

“Johanna?” The head doctor, the one who keeps telling her that she’s _safe_ in a disgustingly sympathetic voice, gives her a mournful look. “How are you feeling?”

She laughs at him. “I don’t feel anything.” She tells him honestly, cheerfully. “Absolutely fucking nothing.”

* * *

The thing is - the thing is -

The thing is, it makes sense.

For the last four years, Johanna has been living for two things. To see the Capitol burn, to see Snow’s head on a stake.

Number one has already happened and number two is well underway and it doesn’t feel like it’s _enough._ There’s this gnawing emptiness of _that’s it?_ raging over and over again in her blood. 

The note, the one her father left her, stained with his bloody fingertips. 

_Don’t let them win, Jo._

And she hasn’t. She’s done it. They’ve lost. She’s won.

And it’s not _enough._

So when President Coin proposes another Hunger Games, with Capitol children, that’s the part of her that Johanna answers with. She envisions President Snow, tortured in some District 13 prison, being forced to have _his_ eyes kept open and watch his precious granddaughter fight to the death. Chip away pieces of herself until she turns into something unrecognizable, and then gets an axe in her spine.

She’s forced to reckon with Peeta and Annie’s doe eyes when she gives her answer, and yet again Johanna can’t _believe_ that of all the victors these two bleeding hearts are the ones to survive. 

* * *

Katniss averts her arrow from Snow to Coin during the execution ceremony. Snow is found trampled and dead in the chaos. Katniss is arrested and dubbed insane, sent to exile for her protection.

No one brings up a Hunger Games for Capitol children again. 

* * *

Everyone is going home and Johanna doesn’t know where that is anymore.

“Come to District Four with me,” Annie invites her, and Johanna laughs. 

“I’m afraid of water, remember?” Johanna won’t admit that to anyone but her and Peeta. “Remember, electrocution? Screaming? Being relentlessly tortured by Peacekeepers?”

Annie takes a deep, calming breath. To Johanna’s utter aggravation, she doesn’t cover her ears or slip away or scream. No matter how much Johanna provokes her, Annie of all people seems to be holding up better than the rest of them She should be a fucking raving mess right now, but she’s holding it together, and Johanna hates her more than a little bit for it.

“I’m not going back to Victors Isle.” Annie says firmly. “We won’t have to live by the water. Katniss’s mother is going to come too, she wants to start a hospital - we can help her with that. Keep us busy.”

Johanna scowls at her. 

“This is pathetically transparent you know.”

But when the time comes, Johanna’s at the train station next to her.

"Fuck it." She says with a shrug, hefting her pitiful rucksack with all her worldly possessions over her shoulder.

* * *

Johanna decides that whatever is in those orange pills Annie takes must be a miracle drug to keep Annie as stable and grounded as she is, so she steals one. 

It does absolutely fucking nothing.

So she figures that she must be numb from all the morphling, and her tolerance is too high, so Johanna takes more. And more. And more. 

Still nothing.

“Johanna,” Annie shakes the bottle at her, where half the orange pills are missing. “Have you been stealing my vitamins?” 

“Is that what you’re calling them?”

“Yes, vitamins. For nutrition and health. They’re herbal, Johanna, they’re not drugs. You can’t get high off them.”

She’s making Johanna feel like an idiot, which is fucking unbelievable. _Annie Cresta,_ standing there scolding her for stealing her vitamins like a drug addict.

“No wonder my pee’s been a funny color,” mumbles Johanna, and Annie’s face twitches in aggravation.

Then, she starts to laugh. She laughs until she cries and Johanna hates herself but she starts crying too.

* * *

It takes longer than it should for Johanna to figure it out.

She finds Annie crouched over the bathroom toilet, and puts it together.

“You bitch!” Johanna seethes, and flings a washcloth at her that Annie bats away halfheartedly. “You - how long have you known?! How long?”

Annie picks up the washcloth and uses it to dab at her mouth, almost dainty. “Right before we left for Four.”

“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to come here because you felt obligated.” Annie tells her, and now Johanna understands why her eyes are so clear and filled with purpose. Of course. _Of course._ “I wanted you to come here because you wanted to.”

 _Well that was fucking stupid of course I came here because I felt obligated,_ Johanna wants to tell her, but she feels like all the fight has drained out of her. For the first time in a long time, she feels something other than anger or emptiness. She can’t bring herself to identify the emotion though.

“And here I just thought you were getting fat,” Johanna spits out at Annie, and stalks away.

* * *

“They gave you a shot, right?”

Annie gives her a sharp look. “Who gave me a shot?”

“The Peacekeepers.” Johanna tells her cruelly. She can’t look at Annie, can’t do anything except stare into the fire hearth, her arms bunched around her. “Come on, I know your shit and you know mine. I know _exactly_ what they did to you in the Capitol. But they gave you a shot, right?”

She hears a hitch in Annie’s breath behind her and thinks _this is it._ Finally, she’s managed to break Annie down with her awfulness and she won’t be alone in her misery anymore. 

But while Annie’s voice is faint, she still manages to answer Johanna’s question. “Not a shot. A chip. They took it out when we got to Thirteen.”

“So not a Peacekeeper’s bastard then.”

Finally, _finally,_ Annie hits her.

Johanna lets her. 

“What is the _matter_ with you?” Annie bursts out, chest heaving. 

“Me?” Johanna stands up as if to tower over Annie - which is ridiculous, they’re both very short women - and screams back in her face. “ _Me?_ You’ve spent the last five years off your fucking rocker and now that everything’s over you just, what, now you’re sane? Snow’s dead and you can go on with your life as if it never happened?”

She sees the fight leave Annie’s face and hates it. Hates it hates that soft look that washes over her features. “Jo-” Annie reaches for her and Johanna jerks away.

“You don’t get to call me that.” She snarls. Everyone who has ever called her that is dead. “You’re really just gonna go on? Just gonna pull yourself together and pretend everything’s okay?”

Annie’s crying again. Damnit. “I have to,” she tells Johanna, still clear and determined. “I don’t get to keep my baby if everyone thinks I’m crazy. And that can never, ever happen.”

“It doesn’t fix anything.” Johanna croaks. “Your baby it’s not - it’s not gonna fix anything. It’s not gonna fix you and it’s not gonna fix any of this. Everything’s fucked.”

“Not everything.” Annie says, a stubborn jut to her chin, hand on her stomach. “I refuse to believe that, Jo- _Johanna._ There’s still good in this world. You’ve just got to be brave enough to open your eyes to it.”

“Fuck you.” And Johanna makes sure to slam her bedroom door shut behind her.

* * *

Communications are being built up again between the districts. Johanna doesn’t know whether or not to be flattered or annoyed when she’s Peeta Mellark’s first call from his love nest with Katniss in Twelve.

“How’s Annie?” 

Johanna wrinkles her nose. “I hate her.”

Peeta’s laugh is confused. “You hate… Annie?” He questions, obviously not able to put the pieces together. Because of course not, he and Annie are cut from the same sweet, well... _bread._ All doe-eyed and idealistic and romantic and dreams. Makes Johanna want to vomit.

“The war broke all of us,” Johanna tells him bluntly. “Even _Katniss._ But Annie… it’s like it made her stronger. And I hate her for it.”

Peeta replies carefully. “I don’t know if it made her stronger, but maybe she just already learned how to deal with suffering. Maybe while the rest of us were pretending to keep it together… Annie was actually teaching herself how to heal.”

Johanna’s quiet for a long moment.

“I think that just makes me hate her more."

* * *

The sunrise on the roof of the Training Center is the only time and place where Johanna feels anything resembling peace in the Capitol.

“Hey Jo.”

“Don’t.” Johanna’s voice is soft as she comes to lean against him, hanging over the edge of the balcony. “You have no idea how many times I considered just pitching myself over the edge of this damned thing. Forcefield or not.”

Her best friend laughs. “Think I’ve got _some_ idea. I seem to recall having to haul you back once.”

“That time doesn’t count, I was drunk,” Johanna dismisses, and hates how she doesn’t feel anything when he rests his chin on her head. 

“Are you here to congratulate me?”

“No, you dick, I’m here to yell at you.” But she doesn’t move her head. She can pretend she feels it, let the muscle memory of all the times he _had_ done this in real life soak into her skin. “Because you’re a real fucking piece of work.”

“In my defense, I thought we were just shooting propos.”

“No you didn’t.” This is a useless argument to be having inside her own mind. “You knew what I knew. Katniss was never going to stand back like that.”

“Maybe I would’ve let her go off on her own.”

“No, you _wouldn’t.”_ Johanna feels disgust drip through over her tongue. “We all made a pact before the Quarter Quell - Katniss lives.”

“Well that was just in the arena.”

“It fucking wasn’t, and I know you knew.” She snaps. “I know you knew she was lying about her mission and you went off with her anyway because that’s the kind of bullshit you do. Fucking imprinted on Katniss Everdeen like a baby duckling and followed her off into the heart of the warzone to protect her.”

“... I think you’re confused about how duck imprinting works. I don’t think ducklings usually do the protecting.”

“You know what I fucking mean - she was like the little sister you never had - or like a replacement for the one that you lost.” 

“Thought that was you.”

 _So did I._ “Like the little sister you actually _wanted.”_

He noses her hair. She can’t _feel_ it but she imagines she can. “Jo, you were my best friend. I loved you.”

“You picked Katniss over me.” Johanna can’t even recognize her voice. “Over both of us - you had a fucking _wife._ You didn’t need to go.”

“It wasn’t just about Katniss. Jo, you of all people understand why I had to go. You wanted to go as much as I did.”

“But they wouldn’t let me.” She thinks she can feel how dry and tacky her throat is. “They wouldn’t let me go and I had nothing and no one but they let you go and you had everything. And I hate them and I hate Katniss and I hate you and I hate... me. I hate me for not being there. I should’ve been there. Or I should’ve - I should’ve injured or mutilated you or something to stop you from being able to go.”

“But then who knows if we would’ve won.”

Johanna snorts. 

“What - you think the entire outcome of the war was contingent on you? Newsflash asshole - you’re not that important.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s a ripple effect, you know? But what’s done is done, you’ll never know what _could_ have happened.”

“All I know is that I wish I was dead.” Johanna says, looking out across the imagined Capitol skyline. “I wish that this was real and I could throw myself over it.”

“Jo.”

_“Don’t.”_

“You promised.” His voice is hard, almost angry. “You promised you’d look after her.”

“And you promised you’d come home.”

* * *

Everyone’s fucking exclaiming over Annie’s baby’s eyes. Like it’s such an amazing _miracle_ how green they are. Like half of fucking _District Four_ doesn’t have green eyes. They’re nothing special.

Johanna absolutely refuses to look at them.

She refuses to look at Rio in general, and just sort of pretends he doesn’t exist. She helps Annie around the house, she goes off to her job of rebuilding the bombed-out District Four houses, but she does not touch or look at Annie’s baby. 

One afternoon Annie is out (she keeps _leaving_ Johanna with the baby for longer and longer periods of time, like she thinks she can trick Johanna into looking after him) and Johanna is sorting through a bunch of old junk. She pulls out a photo of Rio and almost shoves it out of sight on reflex, before she realizes.

It’s not Rio. 

The picture falls from Johanna’s fingers.

The hair is a little different, lighter, and the baby is older and bigger than Rio. Skin a little darker.

But those eyes. Those eyes are exactly the same.

When Annie finds them, Johanna's crouching down in front of Rio, staring at his eyes. Rio is a shockingly non-fussy child, because he just lets her.

“Jo?” Annie asks cautiously, setting down her bag from the market.

Johanna is crying.

“I get it.” She sniffs, whipping at her face. She’s not looking at Annie. “Finnick, I get it. I understand, okay? I get why.”

Annie kneels next to her... and puts her chin on top of Johanna's head.

And that's when Johanna finally loses it.

She crumples in on herself, sobbing into Rio's hair like she hasn't since her father killed himself to protect her.

Her heart feels cracked open, gaping wide and bleeding.

“I know,” Annie says comfortingly, holding her son and her friend close to her chest, her own tears falling. “I miss him too. I miss him so much Jo. I miss them all. But we’re here. We have each other. We’re gonna be okay.”

“Okay,” Johanna whispers back, kissing Rio’s curls. “Okay.”


End file.
